The vintage ads which encouraged women to put ON weight before hitting the beach

The vintage ads which encouraged women to put ON weight before hitting the beach

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UPDATED:

16:08 GMT, 4 July 2012

This summer women will be bombarded with diet tips on how to get a bikini body and many may not dare to bare for fear of looking overweight.

But these vintage adverts show that in decades gone by, the opposite was true. Women were encouraged to buy products to help them put on weight rather than lose it.

One advert asks, 'left out of the seaside fun because you're too SKINNY', while another proclaims 'why be skinny Come on and enjoy life!'

Celebrating curves: According to this advert, it's no fun being skinny and underweight people 'hate the summer'

The adverts date back to 1908 and various versions were published in magazines and newspapers from then until the Eighties. They state that being thin, which many women today aspire to, does not make you happy and can lead to you being ostracised. And while many catwalk models today are a size zero, all the models in these adverts have buxom cleavages and curvy hips.

The adverts, which were posted online by the blog retronaut.co, mainly endorse the dietary supplement Wate-On, which promises to give women natural curves and 'healthy flesh'.

The supplement was made of sucrose and vegetable oil with added vitamins and could be bought as tablets or as a powder to drunk when mixed with water.

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Weighty issue: This advert from The Strand Magazine offers advice on how to how to improve your life by 'putting on flesh'

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Times have changed: These adverts for Wate-on, a supplement that can help people out on weight, imply that being skinny will make you unpopular and unattractive